Departments are a required element of your Portal, and User management. Each User is required to be associated with a Department. A User may only be associated with one Department at a time. Departments can break into different Sub-Departments that mirror reporting structures or divisions in an organization or team.

Departments are distinct from Groups:

• A User is required to be in a Department. Department selection is mandatory for User creation.
  • Groups are optional, and do not need to be used or assigned.
• A User may only be associated with one Department at a time.
  • A User may be associated with multiple Groups simultaneously.

This article covers creating and managing Departments in your Portal.

Considerations

It is strongly recommended to use unique names for each Department. Duplicate names will cause administration to become difficult.

If you have a Data Import Integration and the source of truth has duplicate Department names, we recommend adding the Department code or some other way to identify them to the end of each duplicate name.

The Billing section will only appear if E-Commerce is enabled on your Portal. Department Billing Type can be optionally set to N/A, Internal, or External. The Billing Type can also be optionally extended to all Sub-Departments of the Department. 

If you are adding new Users to a Department and have a Blended Billing Model, a tool tip will state whether the Department you've selected has Internal or External Billing applied. Please ensure you have selected the correct Department and the Department has the expected Billing Type.

Creating Departments

This section will guide you through the process of creating a new Department.

1. Access the Admin Experience.
2. Open the Users menu and select Departments.
   
3. Click the Add Department Action on the right hand side.
   
4. Enter the Name for your new Department.
   
    
5. Select the Parent Department by clicking Select Department and using the selector.
   
    
6. Configure other details if required. When finished, click Save.
   

If the Save button is greyed out, required fields have not been filled out. Confirm that Department name and Parent department have been selected. 

Parent Department

When creating a new Department, it will always exist underneath another Department in a hierarchical structure, such as the example below:

The first new Department created in a Portal, will exist underneath the default Department of your Portal, in this example it would be Company Name. Departments may share the same Parent Department such as it is with Marketing, Operations and Finance in the example. 

When selecting a Department, the arrow next to a Department name will expand the list of options below it.

External ID

External ID is an optional field that can be used to hold a value your organization requires. This value may be referenced by an Integration.

Department LMS URL

If enabled for your Portal, the Department LMS URL field allows you to assign a unique Portal Route to a Department, giving Learners in that Department a dedicated login URL. An Include All Sub-Departments toggle is also available, which extends the same Portal Route to every Sub-Department beneath it.

If you require a new Portal Route, reach out to your Absorb Client Success Representative for assistance.

Message Branding

Branding, contact details, and sender information for emails sent to Learners in a Department are no longer configured on this page. These settings are now managed from a dedicated Message Branding screen. To access it, open the Departments report, then select Message Branding from a Department's Action menu.

For details on configuring these settings, see Message Branding.

Field Values

Underneath the Message Branding section, is the Field Values section. The fields in this section are optional, and allow you to define a value for Users in this Department.

Selecting any of the options in this section will apply the value to all Users created in the Department.

Click Add job title to manually enter a Job title that can be assigned to any User within the Department. Similarly, click Add location to manually add a Location associated with the Department. Users within the Department can be assigned to one of the added Locations. 

E-Commerce

The E-Commerce section only appears if E-Commerce is enabled on your Portal. A Discount Percentage can optionally be set for the Department, which applies to purchases made by Users within it.

Custom CSS and JS

The Custom CSS and JS section only appears if Custom Web Scripts is enabled on your Portal. This section allows you to add Learner Experience Custom CSS, Learner Experience External JavaScript (URLs separated by a new line), and Learner Experience Custom JavaScript for the Department. A Change Log tracks updates made to these fields over time.

Cookie Banner Setting

The Cookie Banner Setting section only appears if the Cookie Banner feature is enabled on your Portal. Enter a OneTrust Script ID to connect the Department's Learner Experience to your organization's OneTrust cookie consent configuration.

Assigning Users to Departments

Once you have created your new Department, the next step will be to assign Users to it. This section details how to manually add Users to a Department:

1. Access the Admin Experience.
2. Open the Users Menu from the left hand side and select Users.
   
3. Select a User from the list you want to add to a Department.
   
4. Use the Edit User Action from the right-hand side.
   
5. Under the General tab of the Edit User page, click Select Department.
   
6. Once you have selected the preferred Department, don't forget to Save.

Bulk Assigning Users

It is possible to select multiple Users instead of just one, and change the Department of each of them at the same time.

With multiple Users selected from the Users Report, use the Change Department Action from the right hand side. This will allow you to select a new Department for the Users.

Don't forget to Save once the Department has been selected.

Deleting Departments

When attempting to delete a Department, you may receive an error message that indicates something is preventing the Department from being deleted. For example, since all Users are required to belong to a Department, you must move all Users out of a Department before deleting it.

The following scenarios will prevent a Department from being deleted:

Scenario	Action
The Department contains Active or Inactive Users.	You must move all of these Users to a new Department before deleting this one.
The Department is a parent to other Sub-Departments.	You must move all Sub-Departments to belong to a different parent. If this Department was deleted as-is, then those Sub-Departments would have no parent.
There are Department Admin who have their User Management set to this specific Department.	You must change their User Management to a different Department.
The Department is still in use in at least one Availability Rule, including Enrollment Rules, Automatic Group Rules, or Availability Rules for features such as Billboards.	You must removes these Availability rules.
The Department contains one or more locations under the Field Values tab.	You must delete all locations in the Field Values tab for this Department.

In all of these cases, the following error message will appear and indicate what is preventing it from being deleted:

Department History

The Edit Department page includes a View History link, which opens a dialog showing a record of changes made to the Department. Updates are grouped by date, with individual changes listed by the time they occurred. Each date group displays up to six updates by default; click View More to see any remaining items.

User Management By Department

You are able to assign an Admin to manage the Users within a Department or a Department and it's related Sub-Departments. To assign an Admin to a Department, follow these steps:

1. Access the Admin Experience.
2. Open the Users Menu from the left hand side and select Users.
   
3. Select and edit the Admin you want to assign to a Department.
4. Under the Account section, select Department for User Management.
   
5. Define a Rule that points to the Department or Sub-Departments you want for the Admin by clicking Add Rule and using the Department selector.
   
6. Click Save when your changes are complete.

Best Practice Tips

This section contains additional information that may benefit the configuration of Departments in your Portal.

Departments vs Groups

Departments are a required feature which is used to organize and classify Users. Users can only be in one Department, and also must belong to one.

Groups are an optional feature that can be used in instances where your Department structure does not capture a subset of Users that you need to administrate or report on. Users can be in more than one Group, or none.

Here are a few scenarios that will guide you through deciding whether you should use a Department or a Group in certain situations:

Structure Examples

Departments are arranged in a hierarchical relationship with Sub-Departments listed under Parent Departments. Most reports, settings and rules in Absorb can reference a specific Department, or a Department along with its Sub-Departments.

Groups can be set up using automatic filtering rules and Users that meet those rules will be automatically added to that Group.

In the Groups report there are no sub-department or parent associations. The report displays an overview of the number of Users in each, how the Users are added, as well as created and edited dates. Unlike Departments, Groups are primarily used for performing bulk actions on otherwise unrelated Users.

For example, to offer specific training to Managers across Departments, you could create an Automatic Group based on the User Field “Job Title” containing “Manager”. You could then set Availability Rules on Courses, Resources, Billboards, etc. that would only be accessible to those that meet the requirements of that Group, regardless of their Department.

Internal vs External Departments

There are a few different methods of separating Internal Users from External Users in Absorb. The recommended way to achieve this is to first create two new Departments called Internal and External. If you are selling Course content or are administrating your LMS for your own clients, it may be valuable to consider this use-case.

Place these new Departments immediately after the highest level Department in your hierarchy. The highest level Department in your LMS is referred to as the Root Department. Next, place any internal employees under the Internal Department, and any external Users such as your Clients under the External Department. If you sell Courses through E-Commerce, you could add those Users to the External Department stream as well.

One method for creating a unique experience for different groups of Users in Absorb is to create and use separate URLs, separately or in conjunction with custom branding and Department Templates based on the Department that the Users are in.

As an example, we could have one Department called, Internal, set up to access Absorb using a custom URL, login page, and see a custom design specific to the Department. Our second, External Department would access Absorb using an altogether different custom URL, and see a different login page, and custom design specific to their Department. Here is a visual example of this Department structure:

There are many benefits of structuring your Departments this way. For example, you can create custom URL Routes for the Internal and External Department streams in order to create a unique experience. You can also create new Department Templates for unique dashboard branding on the Learner Interface. You will need to contact your Client Success Manager or Account Manager to have new URL routes created.

Roles and Permissions

Below are the required Role Permissions Admins will need to View and/or Modify Departments within the LMS and the suggested Role Permissions Admins may want to have in combination of what is required.

Please note that your environment may use customized Roles, Permissions, or a combination of both to perform these activities. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact your local System Administrator to review your current permissions.

Required Role Permissions

Suggested Role Permissions

Related Articles

Additional information about Departments can be found in the following articles:

• Message Branding
• Department Administrative Report
• Department Templates
• Locked Department
• Data Imports: Object - Departments
• Department Progress Report